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DRoseDARs
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"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:35
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Well, looks like Sen. Stevens won't have to slit his wrists now... 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...tic_drilling_17
Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling
55 minutes ago
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush (news - web sites).
The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.
The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said. The House has not included a similar provision in its budget, so the issue is still subject to negotiations later this year to resolve the difference.
The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.
Drilling supporters acknowledged after the vote that for refuge development to get final approval Congress must still pass a final budget with the Senate provision included, something Congress was unable to do last year.
Still, "this is a big step," said Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, who said he had tried for 24 years to open the refuge, but failed because Democrats blocked the effort through filibusters. The budget is immune from a filibuster, meaning drilling supporters will need only a majority — not the 60 votes required to break a filibuster — to succeed when the issue comes up for final action later this year.
Environmentalists have fought such development and argued that despite improved environmental controls a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm calving caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds that use the coastal plain.
Bush has called tapping the reserve's oil a critical part of the nation's energy security and a way to reduce America's reliance on imported oil, which account for more than half of the 20 million barrels of crude use daily.
It's "a way to get some additional reserves here at home on the books," Bush said Wednesday.
The Alaska refuge could supply as much as 1 million barrels day at peak production, drilling supporters said. But they acknowledge that even if ANWR's oil is tapped, it would have no impact on soaring oil prices and tight supplies. The first lease sales would not be issued until 2007, followed by development seven to 10 years later, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.
"We won't see this oil for 10 years. It will have minimal impact," argued Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., a co-sponsor of the amendment that would have stripped the arctic refuge provision from the budget document. It is "foolish to say oil development and a wildlife refuge can coexist," she said.
Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., argued that more oil would be saved if Congress enacted an energy policy focusing on conservation, more efficient cars and trucks and increased reliance on renewable fuels and expanded oil development in the deep-water Gulf where there are significant reserves.
"The fact is (drilling in ANWR) is going to be destructive," said Kerry.
But drilling proponents argued that modern drilling technology can safeguard the refuge and still tap the likely — though not yet certain — 10.4 billion barrels of crude in the refuge.
The vote Wednesday contrasted with the last time the Senate took up the ANWR drilling issue two years ago. Then, an attempt to include it in the budget was defeated. But drilling supporters gained strength last November when Republicans picked up three additional seats, all senators who favored drilling in the refuge.
Opponents of drilling complained that Republicans this time were trying "an end run" by attaching the refuge provisions to the budget, a tactic that would allow the measure to pass with a majority vote.
The 19-million-acre refuge was set aside for protection by President Eisenhower in 1960, but Congress in 1980 said its 1.5 million acre coastal plain could be opened to oil development if Congress specifically authorizes it.
The House has repeatedly passed measures over the years to allow drilling in ANWR only to see the legislation stalled in the Senate. But last week, the House refused to include an ANWR provision in its budget document, although any differences between the Senate and House versions would likely be resolved in negotiations.
Drilling supporters argued that access to the refuge's oil was a matter of national security and that modern drilling technology would protect the region's wildlife.
Environmentalists contended that while new technologies have reduced the drilling footprint, ANWR's coastal plain still would contain a spider web of pipelines that would disrupt calving caribou and disturb polar bears, musk oxen and the annual influx of millions of migratory birds.
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DRoseDARs
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"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:35
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This is interesting, Delay basically said in 2003 that this ANWR scam is about little more than wasting taxpayers' money and congressional time.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...nwrside17m.html
Edited to make paragraphs:
quote:
Thursday, March 17, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
Much ado made about not much oil?
By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times staff reporter
Yesterday's U.S. Senate vote moved the nation one step closer to extracting oil from beneath Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). But the importance of getting oil from there is still in dispute, even among people on the same side of the issue. Many environmentalists fear losing this contest could damage not just Alaska wildlife but also their political clout in equally important upcoming battles with Congress and the Bush administration.
Drilling boosters argue that the refuge and nearby state- and Native-owned lands, estimated to hold 10.4 billion barrels of oil, could help relieve American dependence on foreign oil. But it's still not known exactly how much oil could come out of ANWR. Even on the optimistic side, it would meet a small amount of the country's needs.
At its peak, oil from the refuge, along with surrounding land that would likely be drilled to capitalize on the new pipelines, would account for 3 percent to 6 percent of U.S. oil consumption, compared to between 64 and 67 percent from foreign sources, according to the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy. It also could provide a shot in the arm for Alaska's economy as major North Slope oil fields, such as Prudhoe Bay, run low.
"No one questions the benefit to the country that Prudhoe Bay has represented," said John Katz, head of the state of Alaska's Washington, D.C., office and a veteran of the refuge fight, who spoke days before the vote. "All of the same arguments that might have been made against opening Prudhoe Bay have been made against ANWR. Yet Prudhoe Bay has provided tens of thousands of jobs around the country and improved the energy supply for the nation," Katz said.
Less than Prudhoe Bay Compared with the ANWR, Prudhoe Bay is expected to produce roughly a third more — 13.4 billion barrels of oil, 10.7 billion of which has already been pumped, according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. Supporters say the drilling can be done while leaving a small footprint on a fraction of the overall refuge. The latest plan calls for confining oil-drilling operations to 2,000 acres in the coastal plain of the 19-million-acre refuge. Advances in drilling technology could allow companies to drill sideways for long distances, enabling them to cut down on the number of drilling pads, say proponents.
Yet even some drilling supporters acknowledge ANWR oil will do little to dent the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Dennis O'Brien, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Policy at the University of Oklahoma, said oil from the refuge could be valuable as a way to help reduce the overall U.S. trade deficit. But he said it's too small to have implications for national security and reliance on foreign oil.
"The national-security argument for producing ANWR is a little bit of a, well, it doesn't really meet the national-security test," said O'Brien, who was deputy assistant secretary for international energy security under President Reagan. Major oil companies have also expressed less interest in the refuge in recent years. Since 2002, BP and ConocoPhillips, two companies with a large presence in Alaska, have pulled out of Arctic Power, a pro-drilling lobbying group financed largely by the state of Alaska. A number of oil companies have also been noncommittal about the refuge's importance.
While many drilling boosters are reluctant to lay claim to any broader agenda, environmentalists are eager to do it for them. They point to comments reportedly made by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, in 2003. The D.C.-based publication Roll Call reported that DeLay, in a closed-door meeting with Republicans, said the drilling in the refuge was "about precedent" and the "symbolism of ANWR." Environmentalists argue the damage to a wild, untouched landscape that's home to polar bears, wolves and a caribou herd numbering 129,000 outweighs the contribution the oil would make to the nation's energy supply.
A fig leaf
The environmental protections in the latest legislation are, they charge, a fig leaf to cover what could become a sprawling complex of oil pipelines, roads and drilling pads. The 2,000-acre limit isn't confined to one spot, but could be made up of lots of smaller facilities spread around the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain. But they warn the symbolism of drilling there could embolden people to consider lifting drilling bans in offshore areas such as parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
Others say a continued focus on getting more oil distracts from the more important work of conserving energy and shifting to more eco-friendly energy sources like hydrogen, wind and solar power. But some environmentalists voice frustration with the focus on a remote part of Alaska when the Bush administration is pressing ahead with a broad range of measures they oppose.
"I don't think it's the most important issue. I do think it's one of the few that has iconic status," said Hal Harvey, director of the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a major donor to environmental groups, in an interview several weeks before the vote. He ticks off widespread natural-gas drilling in the Rocky Mountains, changes to bedrock environmental laws like the Clean Air Act, and numerous bureaucratic maneuvers that have frustrated environmentalists, as pressing issues receiving less attention.
People leading the fight answer that the refuge's symbolic importance shouldn't be undervalued. In a political arena where regulations are often complex and hard to boil down for the broader public, the refuge offers a clear-cut issue, they say. "The Arctic refuge is about a very simple decision: Do we protect a place that we have kept wild for 40 years, or do we sacrifice it?" said Jim Waltman, director of refuges and wildlife for the Wilderness Society.
Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company |
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16-03-2005 07:19
how dare you che, you dirty comme!
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